Category Archives: News

Three more news stories on mosquitoes

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KTNA: Mosquitos Are Out For Blood
http://ktna.org/2013/06/18/mosquitos-are-out-for-blood/

Redoubt Reporter: Bugging out — Soggy spring brings swarms of mosquitoes
http://redoubtreporter.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/bugging-out-soggy-spring-brings-swarms-of-mosquitoes/

Redoubt Reporter: Science of the Seasons: Summer mosquitoes excel at surviving winter
http://redoubtreporter.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/science-of-the-seasons-summer-mosquitoes-excel-at-surviving-winter/

Three articles on high mosquito numbers in Alaska this season

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Anchorage Daily News: Mosquito invasion in Southcentral Alaska leads to run on supplies
http://www.adn.com/2013/06/17/2943159/mosquito-invasion-in-southcentral.html

Alaska Dispatch: Alaska mosquitoes: Are they really that bad this year?
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130617/alaska-mosquitoes-are-they-really-bad-year

Peninsula Clarion: Buzz off!
http://peninsulaclarion.com/news/2013-06-17/buzz-off

New Publication: Characterizing spatial distributions of insect pests across Alaskan forested landscape: a case study using aspen leaf miner (Phyllocnistis populiella Chambers)

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In this article appearing online in the Journal of Sustainable Forestry, long-term temperature and precipitation data were shown to be important ecological drivers in determining the distribution of aspen leaf minor (Phyllocnistis populiella Chambers) and the aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) host in the state of Alaska.

The abstract is available via the URI below.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10549811.2013.779198

Presentations from the 2013 annual meeting of the Alaska Society of American Foresters

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A few entomology-related presentations were given at the 2013 annual meeting of the Alaska Society of American Foresters held in Anchorage on April 24-27.  The presenters kindly supplied pdf versions of their talks available from the links below.

Exotic insects of concern. Liz Graham, USDA Forest Service.

Alaska Firewood Survey. Mia Kirk, Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

The Emerald Ash Borer: Lessons learned from managing an exotic forest insect. Liz Graham, USDA Forest Service.

2013 Science Fair Awards

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The recipients of the 2013 Science Fair Awards are listed below.  I believe there were multiple entomology-related projects at each of the three regional science fairs.

Southeast Alaska Regional Science Fair – Gabriel Cohen, “How Sediment Slug Size Porosity Affects Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities.”

Alaska Science & Engineering Fair – Crystal McNeilly, “A Survey of Biodiversity of Aegialites beetles in Sitka Sound.”

Interior Alaska Science Fair – Aspen and Riley French, “House Cricket Habitat Selection.”

More on the award is available on our Science Fair Award page.

New Publication: Unexpectedly high among-habitat spider (Araneae) faunal diversity from the Arctic Long-Term Experimental Research (LTER) field station at Toolik Lake, Alaska, United States of America

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Appearing in a special issue of the Canadian Entomologist on arctic entomology in the 21st century, the authors compared species diversity predictions of a three-year study of spider diversity with a single-season sampling effort using multiple methods, finding surprisingly high diversity (75 species).

The abstract is available via the URI below.

http://dx.doi.org/10.4039/tce.2013.5

New Publication: A worldwide review of the genus Arganthomyza Roháček, with revision of the Nearctic species (Diptera: Anthomyzidae)

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In this monograph published in the journal Zootaxa in January, members of the genus Arganthomyza (formerly within Anthomyza) were treated.  Two of the five species described as new occur in Alaska.

This is not an open access article, but the abstract is available at the the URI below.

http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2013/f/z03604p072f.pdf